Ph.D., M.A. in Second Language Acquisition, Carnegie Mellon University

B.A. in English Language and Literature, Waseda University

About

Sanako Mitsugi is Assistant Professor of Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, where she also serves as the Japanese language program coordinator. She is interested in the cognitive mechanisms that underlie second language processing. More specifically, her work examines the contributions of factors including high order relationships across sentences, the ability to generate predictions in language, and language experience. In order to examine these issues, she uses psycholinguistic experimentation, such as eye-tracking methodology. Her articles have appeared in various journals such as Applied Psycholinguistics, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, and International Journal of Bilingualism. Recent grants she has received include Language Learning research grant, ACTFL research priority award, and Japan Foundation pedagogical grant.

Mitsugi, S. (2016a). A Usage-based approach to relativization: an investigation of advanced-learners’ written production of relative clauses in Japanese. In K. Kabata & K. Toratani (Eds.), Studies on Language Acquisition Series. Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language (pp.113–136). Walter de Gruter.

Mitsugi, S., & Shirai, Y. (2015). L1-L2 asymmetry of the animacy effect in the processing of Japanese relative clauses. Journal of Japanese Linguistics, 31, 5-32.